Ben Barringt on's MARRIAGE SECRETS

After five years together, the Shortland Street star and his wife Kristie reveal what makes them tick - and the challenges they’ve faced 

- Nicky Pellegrino

As they celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, Shortland Street actor Ben Barrington and his wife Kristie Fergus are reminiscing over the day they met for the very first time.

It was a hot summer’s afternoon and they were both with groups of friends having drinks in the courtyard of an Auckland bar.

“We locked eyes and kept on looking at each other,” recalls Kristie. “Th ere was this crazy chemistry – it was instant.”

At 1.93m tall, and dressed in a singlet and tight multicoloured shorts, Ben was diffi cult to miss. But Kristie didn’t recognise him from the show he was starring in at the time, Th e Almighty Johnsons.

She recalls, “He left to go and have dinner over the road with his mum and aunty. I was gutted that he’d gone. But then he came back after dinner and asked me if I wanted a drink – and even though I was holding a full glass of Champagne, I said yes.”

“That was it,” agrees Ben. “We met the old-fashioned Kiwi way – at the pub – and there was something quite nice about it.”

Kristie must have been pretty sure Ben was “the one” because she took her son Oliver, then 11, along on their first official date.

“I just felt like it was right and they got on really well straight away,” she says.

Eleven years on, the couple also have a seven-year-old daughter, Harley, and have settled down in a beautiful home surrounded by native bush in West Auckland.

For Ben, the stability of family life is exactly what he needs to balance his professional life as an actor.